


Two Halves of a Different Coin

by babyboymatt



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Angst, Deep Conversations around Campfires, F/M, Fluff, It's been so long I forgot how to tag, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Queer Themes, it isn't said outright but zelda is a lesbian and link is pan, link is pining over sidon to be clear, neurodivergent character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:54:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25819159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babyboymatt/pseuds/babyboymatt
Summary: So imagine this: you defeat the big bad guy and then you're left to rehabilitate the princess that's supposed to govern an entire kingdom that's already moved on and you're just a 17-year-old kid who woke up two years ago in a weird bathtub with your memory. Crazy, right?
Relationships: Link/Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Kudos: 12





	Two Halves of a Different Coin

It’s weird. This is weird. 

They’re just sitting by the fire, waiting for the water to boil. Zelda sits across from him on a rock he scooped out hours before they set up camp. Link is staring into the fire absently, waiting for the rattling of the pot lid to trigger him into movement. The moon is bright. A wolf howls in the distance. The fire lets out a groan before a log falls and cracks open, sending sparks flying into the updraft of the fire and to their short deaths into the dirt below. The last time Zelda said anything was hours ago, asking permission to take pictures of nearby mushrooms. (Link would be close enough to hear if a bokoblin or moblin attacked her, he tried to reason to himself. He let her go anyways.) 

The stick he’s using to absently tend the fire is being held in a white-knuckled grip under his gloves — the pot is beginning to show signs of rattling. Zelda taps at the sheikah slate quietly, completely absorbed with learning all of the functions. He tries to take a steadying breath to relieve some of the tension is his chest, but he ends up sending a small cloud of ashes towards Zelda’s feet. Though, she doesn’t seem to notice. 

It’s only been a few days. He has to keep reminding himself that some things don’t bounce back the same, that things take time to adapt and heal and mend, but for Goddesses sake, he’s _trying._ That’s all he can do, and the fire crackles again, and he’s done his part with cooking and protecting and being patient, he _has._

Zelda lets out a surprised hum at something on the slate. Link quietly grinds the ball of his foot into the dirt from inside his boot. He can barely feel the rocks trying to break the sole, but it’s something. 

He breathes. Looks away from the fire for a moment to check on the water. It’s simmering. He goes back to watching the fire. 

“What is this?” Zelda’s voice isn’t gentle. It isn’t demanding, but it isn’t soft either. She’s asking him like she’s trying to make polite conversation. She probably is. 

Link flicks his gaze up. She’s flipped the slate so he can see the screen, which is displaying a picture of Sidon looking out into the distance of his domain. It’s around evening. The luminous stone in the infrastructure is just about visible. Link remembers this picture. 

_Sidon._ He signs simply, dropping his gaze. He tries to keep his face as blank as possible. 

Zelda pauses, rephrasing her question. She doesn’t look away from him while she does so. “Why did you take this picture?” 

It should be a simple answer. _The lighting was nice,_ maybe. _It was an accident_ would be a lie, but still a plausible answer. _I wanted to_ would be terribly impolite but more honest than he’s allowed himself to be. His heart hammers in his chest as he keeps his eyes trained on the fire, entertaining the thought of becoming firewood. 

He raises his hands to answer. _He—_

The pot lid rattles. 

They both startle, but it’s Link who moves to quickly add the vegetables from where they were pre-prepared on a flat rock he found in a river somewhere and didn’t have the heart to toss back. Using the back of his hand, he pushes the circles of carrot, celery, and other assorted ingredients into the boiling water before gently resting the pot lid to where it was. 

He can hear how they tumble with the rolling bubbles of the water, bumping up against the pot lid. The handle of it rattles with the movement, but neither of them reach out to silence it like they usually do. 

“Link?” Zelda sounds more cautious, now. As she looks to reach his eyes where they’re pointedly trained on the fire, maybe she sees how tense Link is. “If you— if you want to continue, I’m curious to listen.” 

He lifts his hands in front of him. Mouth pressed into a hard line, he tries again. _Sidon looked—_ He stops. Pauses for a moment, looking into Zelda’s eyes before looking away. _Wanted to. I took it because I wanted to._

And that says enough, doesn’t it? Because Zelda nods and looks back to her slate, and Link returns to listening to the sounds of chopped vegetables and herbs trying to escape out of the pot. He closes his eyes for a brief second to hear the dull rumble. It reminds him of his chest, of that picture. He opens his eyes and blearily expects his socks to be damp. 

He had taken that picture a few days after reclaiming Vah Ruta. The constant downpour had ceased, everyone was getting acclimated to the dryer weather, including Link. It had taken him about a week to reclaim the divine beast, and he took the picture minutes before telling Sidon about his sister. He wanted to capture his face before Link broke his heart. 

Link still remembers how surprised he was when Sidon had rested his hand on his shoulder after Link had told him about Mipha, how warm it was.

No one had touched Link other than to kill him or tell him a grave truth since he woke up. There was nothing to blame for the tears that had escaped from his eyes to dribble down his chin. There was nothing to blame for the embrace that Sidon drew him in for. Nothing to blame, no one to keep account for the way Link had curled up and desperately gasped out apologies. 

(He wishes his socks were damp more than he wishes to feel the toes of his boots heating up from their proximity to the fire.) 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, not quite looking at her, because it feels appropriate. The last thing he wants is to make Zelda any more uncomfortable around him. He clears his throat in an attempt to make his voice sound stronger. “I’ll delete it if—if you want me to.” 

He grips the stick in his hands harder to feel the give of the wood beneath his palm. 

Zelda shakes her head furiously. “No! I would never ask for you to do that. It’s much too nice of a picture to erase.” 

He nods in acknowledgment. Something about the position of her feet tells his Zelda isn’t done. 

“There were— there have—“ This is the first time he’s heard her stumble over her words, he thinks to himself. Her hands flutter aimlessly over the edges of the slate, feeling the grooves. She huffs while she searches for her words. “It is no secret that I stray from convention, and the rumors in Gerudo town about me— do I assume correctly that they are still circulating?” 

Link had tried his best to ignore them when they came to his attention. His brows furrow and he nods. 

“Well, I would like you to hear it from me that they are probably...” She trails off, reflexively clasping her hands and setting them gently on her lap where the slate rests. “They are probably true.” 

She nods in finality, but Link knows from how hard she’s straining to not grip her hands that there’s more. 

Something large and heavy unhinges itself in his chest. He can almost imagine it moving into his breastplate. He can feel his lungs struggle to keep it in place. 

“If Sidon is what I believe you have implied,” She says it slowly, choosing her words like someone would choose to step around a landmine. The dull _thunk thunk thunk_ of the boiling vegetables has turned into a louder but just as dull _thud thud thud_ in Link’s ears. He can’t tell if it’s his fingers popping on the grip he has on his stick or the fire snapping that he’s hearing. “Then I want to say that he is lucky to have you as he does. Lucky as one gets.” 

She nods to herself and opens the slate again. Link moves only to lift the pot lid enough to check on the food. It looks like it’s almost ready. 

Minutes pass in relative silence as Link presses his knuckles, hard, into the thin fabric on his sternum. Once. Twice. Three times. Four times. Again and again, until he reaches fifteen and says quietly, “Thank you.” 

Zelda gives him a soft smile. “We have more in common than what meets the eye.” 

In lieu of a reply, he checks the food. It’s done.

So, it’s weird. Everything about this is weird. There are no more secrets between them (if there ever were, with Zelda watching over him from his awakening to his fight with Ganon), there is no more privacy between their destinies. Yet, here they are. Sitting by a fire Link made under the cover of a few trees, waiting for him to serve the food he made. 

He blinks himself out of his thoughts, hurriedly grabbing two bowls (one green, one blue — Zelda bought in Gerudo town when they visited) and two spoons ( Link made it when he was bored and found a nice branch), and does his best not to think of anything but the stew he’s dripping everywhere. 

Zelda, with all of her words and questions, says nothing. Just takes her bowl from where he’s handing it to her and begins to eat. 

The silence between them eats at him more than he eats his stew. The gnawing in his chest should be more uncomfortable, more disconcerting, less familiar than it is. 

“This stew is nice,” Zelda comments quietly. Her spoon softly knocks against the wood of her bowl. “You didn’t over-salt the carrots this time.” 

Link nods. The stick he was tending the fire with lies at his feet, tempting. 

Crickets trill. Leaves rustle. 

Link doesn’t sleep that night. 

A few days, no more than a week, go by, and the wolves in his bones keep circling his throat. He isn’t sure how he’s going to make it out of this without clawing his skin off from the tension. He could barely talk to Zelda before all of this, but now he can’t even get a single word out. Though, Zelda doesn’t mind filling the silence with talk about how much everything has changed. 

“You know, when I was a child, this was just starting to be built,” She touches her hand to the crumbling stone like it’ll help repair it. “It was almost done by the time I turned 17.” 

Link can see the grief in her eyes as she stares at the ruin of what once was (probably) a proud garrison. (Link wouldn’t know— it was like this when he stumbled upon it, looking for shelter from the rain. He still finds his eyes scanning for smoke and rusted weapons.) 

“Makes you think, doesn’t it?” She’s smiling when she says this, like the weight of an entire kingdom isn’t on her shoulders. Like these ruins aren’t a direct byproduct of their joint failure. 

It’s only an hour to the nearest stable, he reminds himself. The clouds blocking the sun aren’t foreboding, and there’s birds chirping at each other in the distance. Magpies, maybe. 

The Master Sword clinks against his shield as he turns towards the road, mentally mapping where the best foraging is on the way. 

The ride there is blissfully uneventful. No Yiga scouts asking for directions, no bokoblins hiding in the bushes, not a single guardian to be seen. The clouds continue to roll overhead as their horses are boarded for the night. 

It seems that as the sun sets, his uneasiness rises. They make conversation around a pot with others staying at the stable, mostly answering questions about their respective duties. Link sees Zelda roll her eyes more than once at some guy who just isn’t getting the hint to back off. He has to stifle a laugh when she eventually responds, “Are you going to eat your dinner or use it as a prop?” The guy he was having a conversation with wasn’t as amused. 

As others take their respective leaves, Zelda stays back with him. It’s almost as if she can sense that he has something to say. 

By the time each person files out, Link is beginning to feel like a swarm of bees have decided that his stomach was a good place to start nesting. It’s almost pitch black, but the fire gives the area surrounding them a warm glow. The fire dances in the reflection of the Master Sword’s scabbard. 

He grips his bowl tighter and pushes himself to talk before the bees decide to take his throat, too. 

“What was it— was I like this, before?” It comes out too intense, unrestricted, a lone wolf of a question. The wolves, once circling, now bark and howl. “Was I mad about it? How did— _did_ we talk about it? Did I know? Did _you_ know?” 

His stew slips around in his bowl, forgotten in favor of keeping his heart inside his body. He feels hollowed out and like he’s about to explode all at once. 

Zelda is looking at him with wide eyes when he gets the courage to look up. She’s practically gaping at him, really. This is probably the most he’s talked to her since they defeated Ganon some time over a week ago. He feels a little guilty for it, but the questions are still clawing to make purchase through his teeth. There are more important things to worry about. 

Zelda, to her credit, takes his questions in stride. 

“Nothing about you has changed, except your role in life.” She shifts where she sits on the rock. Link stares at her intently, eating up her answers like raw meat to quell the wolves in his chest. “You’re freer now than you ever were, from where I can see. You’ve always been private and... a little bit of a closed book, if you don’t mind me saying.”

She pauses for a moment to glance at her now empty bowl and Link’s full one. She smiles warmly. 

“I had some... ideas about who you were and how you felt, but I tried my best to never assume.” Link nods eagerly enough for her to continue that she laughs at him. “I was angry! I was so, so angry about this— this _destiny_ thrust upon mostly me, at first. It took me a while to warm up to you, and the idea that you weren’t just a soldier following orders. We were kids, Link. I’m sure you wanted something more than escorting me around Hyrule and staying up all hours to make sure I was safe.” 

Link shakes his head. His hands shake a little when he raises them to sign. _No, no. I wanted to. I wanted to. Gave me more than a soldier’s life ever could._

He waits until she’s looking at him to sign, _You gave me life. A purpose, other than to survive._

There are tears in her eyes when she whispers, “Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've been feeling Extra Sad lately, with being so far away from family and covid, so I wrote this. Also I was having a sexuality crisis at like 2am and I didn't want to wake my sister up to cry about it.


End file.
